1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to E-mail type facsimile apparatuses that receive E-mail using a mail server and E-mail reception methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
E-mail systems that are spreading recently are mainly implemented using personal computers (PC) equipped with large-capacity memories. Conventionally, E-mail is received by a mail server which stores E-mail temporarily and a PC terminal (hereafter referred to as "client PC") that transmits/receives E-mail receives the E-mail by periodically accessing the mail server. The received E-mail is stored in a secondary storage device such as a hard disk of the client PC.
On the other hand, image files and text files are attached to E-mail. There are a variety of formats and capacities of attached files. E-mail is sometimes accompanied by files that cannot be opened by the receiving side. A normal client PC receives all files attached to E-mail and stores them in a secondary storage device irrespective of whether the attached files are acceptable or not.
Recently, facsimile apparatuses (hereafter referred to as "E-mail type facsimile apparatuses") that can handle E-mail are being developed. E-mail type facsimile apparatuses in general are not provided with a secondary storage device like PC. Therefore, there is a limitation to the amount of data that can be stored in the device, and thus it is difficult to receive all files attached to E-mail and store them as with the client PC above.
Therefore, one possible way to solve this difficulty is to leave E-mail in the server. However, a conventional E-mail type facsimile apparatus cannot determine which E-mail is acceptable or not, nor can receive mail selectively by distinguishing new incoming E-mail and left E-mail in the next access.